A Love Not Spoken Of
by wynnebat
Summary: There's never a good time to realize you have feelings for your completely taken best mate. One-sided Ron/Harry.


In the aftermath of the Final Battle, Ron doesn't have time to consider his and Hermione's kiss. There's funeral arrangements, and castle clean-up, and mourning to be done before he can even remember the kiss happened.

It's Harry, always Harry, who reminds him, gently. "Hermione's been asking for you," he says.

Ron hums from his perch on the windowsill. They're in Fred and George's old room, cleaning things out. Well, Harry's cleaning. Ron's just trying to keep himself together.

"She doesn't want to pressure you. She just wants you to know she's there for you," Harry adds, taking out what look like a pair of bright orange overalls out of the dresser. Those immediately go into the "throw away" pile.

"Of course she does," Ron says. He takes out one of Fred's old textbooks. He had forgotten his brother liked writing in the margins so much.

There's movement, and Harry sits down next to him. Harry's hand is warm on Ron's knee.

"She's your girlfriend," Harry says, like that's supposed to mean something.

And Ron remembers the kiss. "Do you think…" he begins, forgetting what he was going to say.

"Yeah," Harry says. "Go floo-call her." He nudges Ron out the room. "I'll finish up here."

"Thanks," Ron tells him. Even though that definitely wasn't what he'd wanted.

.

Hermione is warm when she hugs him, soft, friendly. He and Harry aren't the hugging types, and his mother is too grieved to give comfort, so Hermione's the first to hug him in a while.

"I've missed you," she says. Ron agrees because it's true. He's missed her. But the entire time he's there, he wants to go back to the Burrow, where Harry's there, alone.

He doesn't because he remembers Harry's never alone – he has Ginny.

.

It should work, their relationship.

Two members of the golden trio, best friends half their lives. He and Hermione have just started dating. It'll work out soon enough.

Harry and Ginny have a few more months under the belt of their relationship. They're always together, always happy. Ron's jealous, but he's not sure if he's jealous of their relationship, or of the way Harry looks at Ginny even when she's not looking.

Ron and Hermione don't have that.

.

Ron doesn't have that, actually. Hermione does. She looks at him like he's her world, her perfect man. And Ron thought that he would learn – he's a slow learner after all, it will take time – but half a year in he still hasn't learned to see in Hermione what she sees in him.

Harry's the perfect boyfriend for Ginny, Ron knows. So he tries to be like Harry, in this as in all other things. Harry's mate, his friend, his—

He needs to stop.

.

Harry's the perfect boyfriend. It makes Ron ache.

No one ever says Harry and Ginny are a bad couple. No one ever says this because it isn't true. Harry and Ginny are probably the best couple Ron's ever met, other than his parents. They fit in a way Ron doesn't see many people fitting.

Ron isn't jealous, because he isn't. He tells himself this enough times that he's sure it'll eventually stick. He's not jealous of Ginny, he tells himself every time he sees the couple together.

There's never a good time to realize you have feelings for your completely taken best mate. Feelings that go beyond brotherly friendship, into an area Ron doesn't want to think about. No one wants to think about it, wants to know about it. Because if they found out, there's nothing but heartache and misery.

If he found out, the look in Harry's eyes when he looks at Ginny, the way he smiles softly at her, the way he holds her hand – all that wouldn't change.

Ron just wouldn't be there to see it.

.

Ginny makes the bright red Weasley hair seem beautiful, with the way the soft waves fall around her face. Her freckles make her face seem daintier, more feminine. Ron feels like a troll next to her when he compares their looks. He's too tall, too skinny, too everything. There was no competition who's more attractive, who Harry is more likely to fall for.

Who he's _already_ fallen for.

There was never any competition.

.

He's fallen for the wrong best mate, and one day Hermione's going to see it. She's a smart girl. She'll realize it one day. They're eight months in and Ron still hasn't learned, so he tells her it's over between them. When she asks if it's someone else, he doesn't answer, because she can tell enough.

.

Ron knows Harry hadn't told Ginny he loves her, not yet, because she mentioned it after a few too many drinks. She says Harry isn't a demonstrative enough lover, or isn't good at talking about his feelings.

By that point, Ron keeps his tongue between his teeth to keep himself from suggesting she break things off with Harry if she isn't satisfied. He doesn't want to ruin their relationship.

Their friendship, his and Harry's, is fair game, though. They're growing apart and he doesn't know how to stop it. Harry is busy with Auror training – they have different classes, different instructors now – and spends his meager free time with Ginny. And when he and Harry do find time to meet, Ron finds himself growing distant as soon as Harry mentions his sister.

He can't help it. Harry would bring her up in conversation so innocuously ("Yeah, but Ginny's bat-boogey hex is still better than mine!") and Ron would instead hear, "By the way, I'm still in love with your sister and oblivious to your feelings." Ron tries avoiding the topic, but it was no use. Harry is in love and it shows in his every expression.

.

So instead of avoiding the conversation, he begins avoiding Harry and Ginny. Ginny isn't hard to avoid — she rarely comes to George's shop, and her work as a Quidditch player keeps her constantly training or travelling. Harry is harder to avoid, but it's doable.

He tells his friend he has a lot of work, or that he has a headache, or that he's busy studying, until a month goes by and he hasn't seen Harry at all.

He can almost convince himself that he doesn't care that he hadn't seen Harry, if not for the empty feeling in his chest whenever someone mentions him.

In the meantime, Hermione starts dating Theodore Nott, and Ron is so distracted he doesn't make a fuss about her dating a Slytherin. She checks him for fever, then scanns for curses affecting his judgment.

Ron couldn't quite tell her that it is love affecting his judgment.

Love that keeps him from seeing his best friend.

Love that keeps him from ruining Harry and Ginny's relationship, because Harry just beams with happiness when he's with her.

Love that keeps him from taking scissors to Ginny's hair when she announces she's moving in with Harry. Because Harry's flat has one bedroom, and Ginny definitely isn't going to be sleeping on the couch. It is all the more proof of Harry's straightness. Even if he were to break up with Ginny, he wasn't going be interested in another man.

A man who is his best friend, no less.

.

When Harry does notice something's wrong, he's clueless. Thank Merlin for small favors, Ron thinks.

"It's not something I did, is it? Because whatever it is, I'm sorry. And I remember us deciding to stop breaking apart our friendship over stupid things," Harry says.

For once, Ron's mostly honest. "It's not you. I just— Fell in love with someone I shouldn't have, and I'm having trouble dealing with it."

"Who is she?"

"He."

"Should I go punch him?" Harry jokes half-seriously.

"Nah. You'd—" be punching yourself "—make it hard for him to like me if you went around beating him up."

And Harry grins, and pats him on the back, and tells him to look on the bright side.

Ron knows for a fact he's better than this, better than some schmuck in love with someone who's never going to love him back. But Weasleys have never been known to have control over their hearts.


End file.
